Students Get Close-Up Look at TV Work

Matt Bruhns thought being a location scout for a film crew consisted of rappelling off cliffs and navigating kayaks down rough rivers.

He learned Wednesday it can also involve inspecting hallways and closets. The 17-year-old Huntington Beach High School senior got a chance to help film an ABC television show in front of the school’s landmark auditorium and saw the less glamorous Hollywood.

Bruhns and several other students who are enrolled in the school’s new Entertainment and Tourism Academy were paired with cameramen, directors, location scouts and technical assistants during the filming of “Vital Signs,” a new show similar to “E.R.”

“It’s been a long morning,” said Bruhns, who arrived on campus at 6 a.m. to help the show’s location manager direct traffic and look for future filming spots on campus.

The crew’s visit was a boost for the fledgling academy, which opened in the fall with 100 students and received its first grant in January from the state for about $85,000 a year, Academy Directory Connie Warbrick said.

The four-year academy introduces students to careers in tourism and entertainment industries and teaches them job skills through specialized classes and internships.

Warbrick said Wednesday’s filming is the first step toward establishing a continuing partnership with the television and film industry. The academy already has several arrangements with companies in the tourism industry, including the Waterfront Hilton and American Airlines, she said.

“The beauty of this is instead of us having to take the kids to Hollywood, Hollywood came to us,” Warbrick said.

Next year, Warbrick said she hopes the academy will accommodate about 200 students and have additional partnerships with the help of the Orange County Film Commission and local tourism councils.

Students from the Huntington Beach Union High School District’s Academy for the Performing Arts, which makes its home at the high school, also watched the filming. The two academies plan to work together and broaden students’ career goals, said Dian Colwell, artistic director of the performing arts academy.

“It’s an excellent opportunity for the kids to see what else they can do, where the jobs really are,” she said.

Members of the Buena Vista production crew were impressed with the opportunities the academy gives students, and said they may return to the campus if the Thursday night show takes off.

“I wish I would’ve had something like this,” Darin Burt, the show’s location manager, said as he watched a student film a segment with the help of the director.